It was the pickle press that did it.

My lovely wife has long celebrated (née tolerated) my cooking obsession but when I bounded through the door that Saturday morning with my newest acquisition - the [amazon asin=B0060NQ3HK&text=Japanese pickle press] - the end was nigh.

Where are you going to put that?

What about the ____ (insert one of the following - food dehydrator, tortilla press, sausage stuffer, etc)? Each of which in my own defense I had used at one time but passed over for my next cooking adventure. The kitchen cabinets were overflowing to adjacent closets with food prep devices.

I have a problem. There I said it. They say the first step is to admit you are powerless. When it comes to cooking and food prep I am able to justify almost every purchase on the basis of ‘learning’.

In the weeks after the pickle press crossed our threshold I was dismayed that the family did not share my enthusiasm for Tsukemono over rice for breakfast. I still have my pickle press and pull it out occasionally but it was the tipping point for me with respect to acquiring more kitchen gadgetry.

You may wonder what the pickle press has to do with coffee makers. I mention the pickle press only to define the “Pre pickle press” era. Conveniently my exploration of coffee making devices was squarely in the Pre Pickle Press era and thus significantly more comprehensive (read expensive) than it would be today.

There is a spectrum of ways in which to make coffee. From my point of view there are as many ways to make bad coffee.

If I was stranded on a desert island (and had a generator) this would be in my top five items.  If I had infinite time I might French Press my coffee every day but the Technivorm delivers the goods without the cleanup hassle.

This was one of two or three brewers that delivers the water at around 200 deg - thats a full 10-15 degrees above most consumer coffee makers - and it makes all the difference. Users of normal consumer grade coffee makers suffer daily dreck in the name of UL listing and engineering compromises to the heating element.

I brew with 65 grams of coffee - no spoons - digital scale all the way. I only need to have one eye open to view the readout and it’s dead on every time.

As to aesthetics, I avoided the technivorm for a long time fearing the wife veto. When I bought mine a few years ago the newer styles were introduced and looked a bit less like a lab apparatus.

Try it - you won’t ever go back

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